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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Coffee and Cats

First off, for your Thursday morning coffee, let me just say that… I love coffee. I am addicted to it. I need it in the morning, and I need it in the afternoon. If I don’t have to get up early, I drink it right until bedtime. The fully caffeinated version. If I don’t get coffee by 4 PM, my mood drops, and I become lethargic, irritable, and really quite cranky. This is very noticeable, because my normal mood is happy, cheerful, and game for just about anything.

A couple of years ago, my husband and I went to Sturgis, SD for bike week. We rode with a group of ten riders and passengers. We rode for hours every day. And let me tell you, I had such an attractive and enjoyable little snit after 5:30 the first day that 9 bikers made sure we stopped at a coffee joint by 4 PM every single day thereafter.

Ahhh, the power of coffee.

I keep decaf in the house, and I do drink it on work nights, but it’s not the same as my beloved Folgers.
I leave my house two-fisted with coffee. One travel mug to drink on the way, and one that I sip off of for the rest of the morning. Work coffee is icky. It’s definitely not Folgers.

I worked a double shift the other day at the hospital, and discovered another wonderful form of coffee: Starbucks Double shot. In a can. I found it in the refrigerated section of Walgreens. I bounced through my 2nd shift singing, “Super-extra-caffeinated Starbucks Double shot. Iced.” People laughed at me. I laughed at myself. It was caffeinated fun. Double shot for a double shift. Highly recommended!

Onward and forward to the subject of cats.

Cats are weird. I may have mentioned this a time or two. My cat, I think, is particularly weird, but I could be wrong about that considering he’s the only cat that I know well. He retrieves me at 10 PM because it’s bedtime. And if I refuse to come to bed, he stands by my chair and bitches at me with his “pissed off squirrel” voice. It totally cracks me up. The other weird thing he does is with his tail. He likes to be stroked from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail, and this is the only acceptable petting. He will suffer through other kinds of petting, but not for long, and it’s pretty obvious that he’s not enjoying it. Anyway, if I pet him correctly, there’s a tension in his tail, and he wraps it around my forearm and pets me back.

Just for fun, here’s a picture of the dog being jealous of the cat:

The dog and cat have lived together for a full year now, and they remain absolutely not friends. They don’t hurt each other, although they do take turns chasing each other. One day the cat is afraid of the dog, the next the dog is afraid of the cat. It’s endlessly entertaining around here.
The cat’s new thing is to run to the back door, then turn and meow at me in a rather demanding way, and he’s clearly saying, “Hello? I want to go outside now.” What’s funny about this is that he’s never been allowed outside. But his body language is pure and total expectation that I am going to open that door and let him out. I almost feel guilty, like I’m keeping him a prisoner, and that the first chance he gets, he’s moving in with the neighbors.